Marlon Troy Riggs was a Black gay filmmaker, educator, poet, and activist. He produced, wrote, and directed several documentary films, including Ethnic Notions, Tongues Untied, Color Adjustment, and Black Is...Black Ain't. His films examine past and present representations of race and sexuality in the United States. The Marlon Riggs Collection is open to the public at Stanford University Libraries.
Tongues Untied is a 1989 American video essay experimental documentary film directed by Marlon T. Riggs, and featuring Riggs, Essex Hemphill, Brian Freeman. and more. The film seeks, in its author's words to, "...shatter the nation's brutalizing silence on matters of sexual and racial difference."
Emanuel Xavier, is an American poet, spoken word artist, author, editor, screenwriter, and LGBTQ activist born and raised in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn. Associated with the East Village, Manhattan arts scene in New York City, he emerged from the ball culture scene to become one of the first openly gay poets from the Nuyorican movement as a successful writer and advocate for gay youth programs and Latino gay literature.
A brother is a man or boy who shares one or more parents with another; a male sibling. The female counterpart is a sister. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to non-familial relationships. A full brother is a first degree relative.
Martin Bauml Duberman is an American historian, biographer, playwright, and gay rights activist. Duberman is Professor of History Emeritus at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York City.
Essex Hemphill was an openly gay American poet and activist. He is known for his contributions to the Washington, D.C. art scene in the 1980s, and for openly discussing the topics pertinent to the African-American gay community.
Robert Reid-Pharr is an American literary and cultural critic and professor.
Thomas Glave is an American academic and author.
Samuel R. "Chip" Delany is an American writer and literary critic. His work includes fiction, memoir, criticism, and essays on science fiction, literature, sexuality, and society.
Black Is... Black Ain't is a 1995 award-winning feature-length documentary by Marlon Riggs. It explores the multiplicity of expressions of African American identity.
Affirmations is a ten-minute short film exploring black gay sexuality as well as the inclusion of black gays in the black community. The film was produced and directed by Marlon Riggs and released in 1990.
Anthem is a nine-minute music video released in 1991. The film was produced and directed by Marlon T. Riggs. The film displays mixes images of mainstream African-American pride, such as traditional African tribal dances, alongside images representing gay pride, such as ACT UP's "Silence=Death". The film uses powerful imagery and poetry to explore, celebrate and revolutionize black gay culture.
Assotto Saint was a Haitian-born American poet, publisher and performance artist, who was a key figure in LGBT and African-American art and literary culture of the 1980s and early 1990s.
The Dark Room Collective was an influential African-American poetry collective. Established in 1988, the collective hosted a reading series that featured leading figures in Black literature.
Donald Cornelius Belton was an openly gay African-American author, editor and teacher.
Rupert Kinnard also credited as Prof. I.B. Gittendowne, is an American cartoonist who created the first ongoing gay/lesbian-identified African-American comic-strip characters: the Brown Bomber and Diva Touché Flambé. Kinnard is gay and African American.
G. Winston James is an American poet, essayist, editor, and activist. His poetry collections include Lyric: Poems Along a Broken Road and The Damaged Good.
Reginald M. Harris, Jr. is a poet and writer and winner of the 2012 Cave Canem/Northwestern University Poetry Prize.
Dwight A. McBride is an American academic administrator and scholar of race and literary studies. From April 16, 2020, to August 2023, he served as the ninth president of The New School. McBride previously served as provost, executive vice president for academic affairs, and Asa Griggs Candler Professor of African American studies at Emory University.
Joseph Fairchild Beam was an African-American gay rights activist, writer and poet.
